A conservative Wisconsin appeals court judge announced Wednesday that she is running for an open seat on the battleground state’s Supreme Court, promising to stop the politicization of the courts after record-high spending in the last race, fueled by billionaires Elon Musk and George Soros.
Appeals Court Judge Maria Lazar, formerly a prosecutor for the Wisconsin Department of Justice, is the first conservative to enter the race, which will be decided in April. Liberal Appeals Court Judge Chris Taylor, a former Democratic state lawmaker, also is running.
Court of Appeals Judge Maria Lazar (Courtesy of Wisconsin Court of Appeals)
Conservative candidates for the high court have lost each of the past two elections by double-digit margins. Both of those races broke national spending records, and a liberal won in April despite spending by Musk, who campaigned for the conservative and handed out $1 million checks to three supporters.
Lazar, 61, said she was disturbed by the massive spending and partisan politics of those races. Both the Republican and Democratic parties were heavily involved in the last campaign.
“We must stop the politicization of our courts,” Lazar said in a campaign launch video.
Lazar pitched herself as an “independent, impartial judge” who will “stop the destruction of our courts.” She also promised “never to be swayed by political decisions” when ruling.
Taylor’s campaign manager, Ashley Franz, said Lazar would be “the most extreme member of the Wisconsin Supreme Court,” if elected.
In her run for the appeals court, Lazar was endorsed by several Republicans who sought to overturn President Donald Trump’s 2020 defeat in Wisconsin.
That includes former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman, who has agreed to have his law license suspended over wrongdoing related to his discredited investigation into the 2020 presidential election.
Lazar was also endorsed by former Trump attorney Jim Troupis, who faces felony charges for his role advising Republican electors who tried to cast Wisconsin’s ballots for Trump after he lost. One of those electors, Wisconsin Elections Commission member Bob Spindell, previously backed Lazar.
Pro-Life Wisconsin also endorsed Lazar, calling her “the only choice for pro-life voters.” Taylor formerly worked for Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin and, as a lawmaker, was one of the Legislature’s most vocal supporters of abortion rights.
Liberal candidates have won four of the past five Supreme Court races, resulting in a 4-3 majority in 2023, ending a 15-year run of conservative control. If liberals lose the April election, they would still maintain their majority until at least 2028. If they win in April, it would increase to 5-2.
The race is open after incumbent conservative Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Bradley announced in August that she would not seek another 10-year term.
Lazar, in her launch video, contrasted herself with Taylor by saying she “has always been a politician first.”
She noted that she was appointed as a Dane County circuit judge by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers in 2020, without any prior experience on the bench. Taylor won election to the circuit court in 2021 and to the appeals court in 2023.
Lazar will start at a financial disadvantage. Taylor’s campaign said in August that she had already raised more than $1 million.
Lazar, who has been on the state court of appeals since 2022, worked in private practice for 20 years before joining the state Department of Justice as an assistant attorney general in 2011.
During her four years there, she was involved in several high-profile cases, including defending a law under then-Gov. Scott Walker that effectively ended collective bargaining for most public workers. Known as Act 10, the statute was upheld by the state Supreme Court in 2011 at a time when conservative justices controlled it.
A circuit court judge ruled in December that the law is unconstitutional but put that decision on hold pending appeal. It could end up before the state’s high court, raising questions about whether Lazar could hear it, given her previous involvement.
Lazar also defended laws passed by Republicans and signed by Walker implementing a voter ID requirement and restricting abortion access.
Lazar left the Justice Department after being elected circuit court judge in Waukesha in 2015. She held that post until being elected to the state appeals court.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.
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Incoming undergraduates to UW-Madison will have to fill out the CSS Profile to apply for institutional financial aid.
The form is available starting Oct. 1.
The CSS Profile will not replace the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), which means new freshmen and transfer students will have to fill out both forms.
Wisconsin Watch and the Cap Times spoke to UW officials about why they are adding the form, as well as nonprofit leaders who have concerns about the move.
Students applying to the University of Wisconsin-Madison will soon need to complete a second, longer financial aid application if they want a share of the millions of dollars in financial aid the university gives out each year.
Starting this fall, UW-Madison will require applicants to fill out the CSS Profile, an online application used by around 270 colleges, universities and scholarship programs to award institutional aid, separate from a different form used to apply for federal financial aid. Students can start working on their CSS Profile Oct. 1.
Many colleges that use the CSS Profile are private. Others are highly selective public universities, such as the University of Michigan and the University of Virginia. In Wisconsin, two private schools also use the application: Beloit College and Lawrence University.
UW-Madison says requiring the application will help direct funds to students who are most in need, but some student advocates worry the extra step could hinder the very students the university aims to help.
The CSS Profile is an online application used by roughly 270 institutions, including the University of Wisconsin-Madison, to award institutional aid. (Courtesy of College Board)
Wisconsin Watch and the Cap Times teamed up to find out what students and their families need to know about this new requirement.
Who needs to complete the CSS Profile?
Only incoming undergraduate students at UW-Madison who are U.S. citizens or eligible noncitizens must complete the CSS Profile to be considered for institutional financial aid. This group includes both new freshmen and transfer students.
Continuing students and new graduate students don’t need to complete the form. The university encourages them to complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, which guides eligibility for federal assistance.
Does the CSS Profile replace the FAFSA?
The CSS Profile is separate from the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, which guides eligibility for federal assistance. (Courtesy of the office of Federal Student Aid)
No. The FAFSA is used to apply for financial aid awarded by the U.S. government, including Pell grants and federal student loans. That form was simplified in recent years to make it easier for families to fill out, despite hiccups during the rollout process. Students who want to apply for federal aid still need to complete the FAFSA each year.
The CSS Profile is a supplement to the FAFSA, said Taylor Odle, an assistant professor who studies education policy at UW-Madison. The application is run by the College Board, the not-for-profit membership organization that makes the Advanced Placement exams and SAT college admissions test.
The CSS Profile helps colleges decide how to allocate their own financial aid and scholarship funds by gathering a more detailed picture of a student’s finances than the FAFSA offers. For instance, the application asks about medical debt and about businesses an applicant’s family may have.
“If you’re a low-income student, while completing the CSS Profile is an additional step for you, it is often potentially in your best interest because it paints the truest picture,” Odle said.
How much does it cost to complete the CSS Profile?
UW-Madison applicants will be required to pay a $25 fee to complete the form. But that fee is automatically waived for applicants with a household income below $100,000.
What’s the deadline for UW-Madison applicants to submit the CSS Profile?
UW-Madison recommends students applying for the 2026-27 school year submit the CSS Profile by Dec. 1, 2025. Students may submit the form after that date, but December is the deadline for priority consideration for funds.
Why is UW-Madison now requiring the CSS Profile?
UW-Madison previously used the FAFSA to allocate all types of financial aid, said Phil Asbury, executive director of the university’s student financial aid office. The CSS Profile will allow UW-Madison to more specifically target university resources toward certain students, especially after the FAFSA recently got shorter, he said.
“We’re really fortunate in that we have more students coming from low-income families or lower-income families each year. Those are really good things, and we want that to continue,” Asbury said. “But we also want to help as many families as we can, and so this will help us to better focus those funds on the families that need it the most.”
Asbury worked with the CSS Profile in his previous positions at Northwestern University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. While he doesn’t expect the form will be a struggle for UW-Madison applicants, he recognizes it’s an additional step.
“If families know they will only qualify for a federal loan, or maybe they know they’re Pell Grant eligible and that’s all they need to go to school, then they can continue to only do the FAFSA,” Asbury said.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison awarded roughly $200 million in institutional support to undergraduate students last school year. Most of that funding was need-based financial aid. (Ruthie Hauge / The Cap Times)
UW-Madison provided roughly $200 million in institutional support last school year to undergraduate students, Asbury said. About $150 million was need-based financial aid.
Students received on average about $17,000 in aid from the university last school year, Asbury said. Nonresident students may receive a bit more since their tuition rates are higher, he said.
UW-Madison is requiring more information from families amid efforts to game the country’s financial aid system. For example, a Forbes article in March advised parents to use investments or businesses to generate losses that would reduce their adjusted gross income and then qualify them for financial assistance.
People trying to hide assets on financial aid applications is “an open secret,” said Carole Trone, executive director of Fair Opportunity Project, a Wisconsin-based nonprofit that offers online counseling to help students across the country apply to and pay for college. She worries abuse of the financial aid system is increasing barriers for students who otherwise couldn’t afford to attend college.
Why are some concerned about the newly required form?
A 2021 article in The Chronicle of Higher Education called the CSS Profile “The Most Onerous Form in College Admissions.” Since then, the application has been shortened and now uses “skip logic” to bypass parts based on students’ answers to previous questions.
UW-Madison is using a “lighter version” of the CSS Profile, which has fewer questions than the full version, Asbury said.
Wisconsin Watch and the Cap Times asked the College Board for the maximum number of questions on the form and for a copy of the application in advance of its Oct. 1 launch. The College Board declined these requests.
Unlike the FAFSA, the CSS Profile won’t pull financial information directly from an applicant’s tax returns, Trone said.
Trone remembers completing the CSS Profile years ago when her three kids applied to college. The form asked the value of her 401(k) retirement account and her home and the balance on her mortgage.
She is worried about students whose parents are unable to help sort through these kinds of questions. That’s why, when UW-Madison announced the new requirement, her team at Fair Opportunity Project started preparing to help students with the CSS Profile, too.
“I’ll admit, even when I was filling out, I was like, ‘I think that’s the right answer,’” Trone said.
“There’s no way a student’s going to know that. … Whereas with the FAFSA now you really don’t actually have to have a lot of stuff with you to be able to complete it anymore, with the CSS Profile, it’s going to be a work session.”
UW-Madison recommends students applying for the 2026-27 school year submit the CSS Profile by Dec. 1, 2025. (Ruthie Hauge / The Cap Times)
Another key difference: On the FAFSA, students whose parents are divorced or separated need to provide information about the parent who provided more financial support over the last year. The CSS Profile requires information from all living biological parents, step-parents and adoptive parents, with exceptions for a handful of special circumstances, including when a parent is incarcerated, abusive or unknown.
There are also differences for families who speak other languages. The FAFSA is available in English and Spanish, and families can read guides or request an interpreter in 10 other languages, including Korean, Arabic and French Creole. The CSS Profile is available only in English, with help available by chat, phone and email in Spanish.
Some who advocate for college access worry UW-Madison’s new requirement will be an additional barrier for students who already struggle to get on the college track.
“FAFSA itself has been a hurdle for some students applying to college,” said Chris Gomez Schmidt, executive director of Galin Scholars, a Madison nonprofit that coaches a handful of high school seniors through college admissions each year. “I think adding an extra, complicated financial application could potentially disproportionately affect students with fewer resources for applying to college, so students from urban or rural areas across the state of Wisconsin.”
Galin Scholars plans to teach its participants about the CSS Profile during an October financial aid workshop but many students won’t be so lucky, Gomez Schmidt said.
Trone at the Fair Opportunity Project isn’t convinced the new requirement will pay off for the university. She noted the vast majority of U.S. colleges don’t use the CSS Profile.
“I’m curious to see how long UW does this,” Trone said. “Maybe they’ll do it for a couple years and realize they’re not actually getting that much better results.”
What help will be available?
As students work through the CSS Profile, they can click on help bubbles for more information. The College Board’s website offers additional guidance, too.
As with other steps in applying for college, students can also seek help from their high school counselors. UW-Madison informed counselors across the state about the new application at a series of workshops in September, and its financial aid office is available to help applicants.
“We do workshops on a monthly basis, and traditionally we’ve called those FAFSA Frenzies,” Asbury said. “We might have to rethink that name now, but we tend to do those throughout the year.”
Applicants seeking more help can find a variety of videos and articles online about filling out the CSS Profile, made by government agencies, nonprofits and entrepreneurs across the country.
Fair Opportunity Project will offer help with the CSS Profile at its one-on-one virtual counseling sessions, which are free to low-income and first-generation college students. Other students may access these sessions for a fee.
The organization is hoping to make help even more accessible by launching a free chatbot that answers questions about the CSS Profile, but that task has proven more complicated than anticipated.
The nonprofit built its existing FAFSA chatbot by training it with the hefty guides and updates the federal government releases each year. The CSS Profile is created by a private entity that isn’t required to make its documentation public.
“We will need to spend more time converting available webinars and presentations into AI training materials. We need to raise more funds to get this extra work done,” Trone said. She hopes the chatbot will be available to the public by November.
Meanwhile, she’s also looking into the “potential risks” of creating a chatbot specific to a privately owned application.
“They are very proprietary about their products, like SAT and AP, so this is a real concern that we need to look further into,” Trone said.
Why do other Wisconsin schools use CSS Profile?
Beloit College is a private liberal arts school near the Illinois border that enrolls about 1,000 undergraduate students. The school started using the CSS Profile about six years ago, but only for international students, said Betsy Henkel, the college’s director of financial aid.
“We also have an internal application,” Henkel said. “But as you can imagine, if students are applying to 10 schools for admission, the thought of doing one application and sending it to 10 schools is much more appealing than doing multiple financial aid applications with each of them.”
When access to the federal government’s simplified FAFSA was delayed in recent school years, Beloit College temporarily used the CSS Profile to give domestic students a financial aid estimate while they waited, Henkel said.
In addition to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, two private schools in Wisconsin use the CSS Profile: Beloit College and Lawrence University. (Ruthie Hauge / The Cap Times)
Lawrence University — a private liberal arts school in Appleton with roughly 1,500 students — has used the CSS Profile for over a decade, Ryan Gebler, the university’s financial aid director, said in an email.
Similar to UW-Madison, Lawrence University uses a “lighter version” of the CSS Profile, with fewer questions, Gebler said. Overall, the application process has gone smoothly at Lawrence, he said.
“Simply put: Compared to the FAFSA, the CSS Profile provides a more accurate calculation of what a student and their family can pay for college,” Gebler said.
Natalie Yahr reports on pathways to success statewide for Wisconsin Watch, working in partnership with Open Campus. Email her at nyahr@wisconsinwatch.org.
Becky Jacobs is an education reporter for the Cap Times. Becky writes about universities and colleges in the Madison region. Email story ideas and tips to Becky at bjacobs@captimes.com or call (608) 620-4064.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
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Wisconsin’s government is failing to enforce basic protections for owners of manufactured homes at a time when private equity firms are buying up parks to maximize profits.
State regulators rarely inspect parks, allow many to go unlicensed and don’t even know which parks are operating.
A patchwork of laws and regulations governing manufactured housing leaves residents unsure of where to turn when conditions deteriorate.
Listen to Addie Costello’s story from WPR.
Priced out of traditional homes during an affordability crisis, many in Wisconsin have found another way to pursue an ownership dream.
Experts estimate that more than 100,000 Wisconsin residents live in manufactured homes, the more accurate name for what many call mobile homes or trailers — structures that make up the country’s largest portion of unsubsidized low-income housing. Many live in parks where they own their homes but rent the land beneath them.
But Wisconsin’s government is failing to enforce basic protections for residents at a time when private equity firms are buying up parks to maximize profits, a Wisconsin Watch/WPR investigation found.
Wisconsin law requires operators to keep parks “in a clean, safe, orderly and sanitary condition at all times.” The Department of Safety and Professional Services (DSPS) is supposed to enforce that law and licensing standards. But it rarely inspects parks, allows many to go unlicensed and doesn’t even know which parks are operating.
Separate state and local agencies handle issues related to leasing, water quality, and health and safety at parks. That patchwork leaves residents unsure of where to turn when conditions deteriorate.
“I don’t know what to do or if I have any rights,” a park resident in Wisconsin Rapids wrote to the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection.
“Why is our government not looking into any of this?” a Hudson resident asked DATCP while facing septic tank failures and surging rent.
In Forest Junction: “I picked this location over a decade ago because of its affordability. I have nowhere to go.”
In Amery: “They know we do not have the resources to move the trailer out of the community.”
In Whitewater: “I don’t know who to reach out to. I’m so stuck.”
WPR and Wisconsin Watch spent six months speaking to manufactured home residents statewide. Some described tight-knit, peaceful and affordable communities. But others detailed sewage backups, dramatic rent hikes, hazardous dead trees and foul-smelling water — all while frustrations simmered with unresponsive landlords and regulators.
What many call mobile homes aren’t actually mobile. Moving them can cost more than $10,000, with risks of damaging older structures. That traps residents when park conditions worsen.
Predatory companies know this, said Paul Terranova, Midwest community organizer with the nonprofit MHAction, which advocates for park residents nationwide.
While tallying every U.S. manufactured home community is difficult, experts estimate Wisconsin has more than 900, with 80 tied to private equity, according to data from the Private Equity Stakeholder Project, a nonprofit watchdog.
Wisconsin regulators are paying little attention, industry professionals, advocates and residents say. That’s as neighboring Michigan and Minnesota offer more resources for residents and stronger oversight.
WPR and Wisconsin Watch also found:
DSPS produced documentation of just 15 parks inspected between 2022 and February.
DSPS lacks an accurate count of manufactured homes statewide. The agency previously published comprehensive data on all licensed communities, but it now posts records for only some counties, with many parks lacking identifying information. At least 27 parks filed evictions in the last two years but do not appear in current DSPS data.
Of the roughly 700 parks DSPS lists in licensing data, roughly 30% have expired licenses. Some park owners say poor communication and a technology overhaul made applying for licenses more difficult.
A legislative task force as far back as 2002 flagged problems with “a scattered state regulatory approach” to the industry that leaves residents confused about who regulates what. It hasn’t been fixed.
Affordable option has roots in Wisconsin
Cindy Philby, 60, sold her traditional, fixer-upper home after realizing she couldn’t afford needed repairs.
She poured all of her money into a manufactured home she found from an Iowa seller on Craigslist. It cost $4,500 plus $10,000 to deliver it to a rented lot at the Woodland Park community in the town of Fond du Lac.
She slept at a homeless shelter in late 2023 while waiting for the home to arrive.
“My next best thing to keep a roof over my head was a trailer,” Philby said.
She was embracing a housing option pioneered in Wisconsin.
The morning sun shines on manufactured homes at the Woodland Park mobile home community, Sept. 17, 2025, in the town of Fond du Lac, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
A Marshfield man’s innovation in the 1950s set the stage for the manufactured homes we see today. Rollohome Corp. founder Elmer Frey’s “mobile homes” — wider than recreational trailers — could be lived in year-round, more affordably than traditional homes.
Manufactured homes can be made quicker, on a larger scale and with less waste than other homes. Today Wisconsin owners of manufactured homes pay a median of $553 per month for housing, compared to $1,118 for all homeowners and $917 for all renters, according to the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.
Local zoning laws often exclude manufactured homes from residential neighborhoods. Parks allow owners to anchor their homes without requiring expensive modifications.
Philby, like many community residents, owns her home and pays a monthly fee for the land and additional costs for utilities. Her lot is owned by Florida-based COARE Communities, a subsidiary of the private equity-backed conglomerate COARE Companies, which touts a focus “on establishing platforms across niche investment strategies.”
Beneath an option to click on an “investor portal,” the COARE Communities website says it is “focused on solving the challenges of affordable housing through the acquisition and preservation of the most affordable type of housing in America – Manufactured Housing Communities.”
The company hiked Philby’s base rent this year from $425 to $500, six times the rate of inflation. It declined to comment on the record for this story.
Philby has struggled to absorb the hike while relying largely on disability payments to get by.
“They are squeezing everybody in this park to death,” she said.
Philby and her neighbors describe a host of additional problems, including poor water drainage and crumbling roads.
The community turns into a “mud puddle” or “lake” following heavy rains or snowmelts, they say.
Wisconsin law requires manufactured homes to sit in “a well-drained” and “properly graded” area to prevent flooding. It’s up to DSPS to enforce the law, but the agency could not locate any inspection records for the park. The park does not appear in DSPS’ licensing database, even though the town of Fond du Lac has separately licensed it.
Philby wants more action.
“Do something,” she said. “Make these people do their work.”
Calling for state regulators to ‘do their damn job’
Following months of door knocking in manufactured housing communities, Steve Carlson has little faith in Wisconsin regulators. He has seen dilapidated, abandoned homes and met residents who fear management will retaliate if they complain.
Carlson, a retired social worker and organizer from Washburn County, co-founded the Wisconsin Manufactured Home Owners Alliance late last year. It aims to keep manufactured home communities viable by pushing for stronger legal protections and helping residents organize.
Steve Carlson, a retired social worker and organizer from Washburn County, knocks on doors in the Birch Terrace Manufactured Home Community through his current role as president of the Wisconsin Manufactured Home Owners Alliance, June 21, 2025, in Menomonie, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
Carlson hopes his work will inspire state regulators to “do their damn job.”
They could look to Michigan, which recently created an inspection team focused on improving conditions at manufactured home parks — visiting them each year.
DSPS inspects parks only when they are built, changed or draw a complaint that officials believe warrants one.
It’s possible parks built decades ago haven’t since been inspected. DSPS lacks records to show otherwise.
More regular inspections would likely require legislative action and more staff, DSPS spokesperson John Beard said in an email.
Local governments can help.
Wisconsin law allows them to monitor parks and enforce regulations on top of state requirements.
“Some municipalities are very good, they go through the property every year,” said Amy Bliss, executive director of the Wisconsin Housing Alliance, a manufactured housing trade association.
“Others just ignore the fact that they even exist.”
The town of Fond du Lac did not inspect Woodland Park while issuing its permit. It inspects parks only when complaints relate to town ordinances, said town Clerk Patti Supple.
DSPS can separately delegate its authority to local health departments. One municipality and 16 of Wisconsin’s 72 counties regulate parks in that way. DSPS holds them to a higher standard than itself, requiring annual inspections of each park.
“What’s going on in the other 56 counties in Wisconsin? Well, it’s anybody’s guess,” Carlson said. “Maybe there aren’t a lot of problems out there. The point is we don’t know, and somebody should find out.”
He hoped Dunn County would seek delegated authority over its housing parks.
Ed Werner, a resident of the Birch Terrace Manufactured Home Community, walks past a manufactured home that is for sale, June 21, 2025, in Menomonie, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
But learning the rules and carrying out inspections would require significant time and resources, Dunn County Health Director KT Gallagher said.
DSPS would allow the county to keep 63% of community licensing fees, nowhere close to covering extra costs, health department staff said at a meeting in August.
Parks are supposed to pay licensing fees every other year that haven’t increased since at least 2006. The minimum fee of $250 would need to rise to $400 just to account for inflation since that time.
While DSPS can raise some fees, Beard said, spending extra dollars would require legislative action.
Dunn County could also raise fees, but officials worry residents would bear those costs. They also fear a scenario in which an owner closes a park instead of fixing issues flagged by an inspection.
That happened in Eau Claire, Gallagher said. City and county inspectors closed a park, leaving some residents with nowhere to go.
That’s why DSPS avoids levying financial penalties even when inspectors find major problems.
“DSPS focus is on gaining compliance,” Beard said. “Forfeitures are a last resort, especially when action could leave residents looking for a new home.”
States like Minnesota help address this dilemma by setting aside licensing fees for grants to defray relocation costs following a closure. Minnesota has also allocated millions of dollars in recent years for manufactured home park owners to make repairs.
Cars are parked in driveways at the Birch Terrace Manufactured Home Community, June 21, 2025, in Menomonie, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
Lawmakers reject help for homeowners
One program helps owners of manufactured homes in Wisconsin.
A portion of titling fees flows to the Tomorrow’s Home Foundation, which grants owners up to $3,000 for repairs or modifications or up to $1,500 to dispose of uninhabitable homes. The foundation received $120,000 from the state during the last budget cycle and raised additional funds on its own.
Democratic Gov. Tony Evers this year proposed adding $40,000 to the program over two years. The Republican-led Joint Finance Committee rejected the proposal and a separate provision to add $1.68 million that could help owners repair failing septic systems.
Meanwhile, the state is missing out on uncollected fees from potentially hundreds of parks without active licenses.
Without extra funds, Dunn County declined to pursue state authority over inspections.
“This is a terrible situation without any easy answer,” said Dr. Alexandra Hall, a family physician on the county health committee. “But maybe we wouldn’t have gotten here if the state was actually enforcing its own laws.”
Licensing system causes headaches
DSPS records show Philby’s Woodland Park community had an active license in 2020, but the department lacks updated information. Beard said the agency is reaching out to the park about renewing.
Confusion has swirled around DSPS licensing dating back to 2020, Bliss said. Frustrations escalated last year — the first time park renewals were done using the LicensE, an online system for the 200-plus industries DSPS regulates.
Among criticisms aired at a February legislative hearing: Park owners weren’t told DSPS would no longer process paper renewals; an online application asked some owners to fill out unnecessary information; and the portal charged just an $8 renewal fee instead of the accurate minimum of $250.
Sun shines on the park office at the Woodland Park mobile home community, Sept. 17, 2025, in the town of Fond du Lac, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
Addressing the rollout across all industries, Deputy Secretary Jennifer Garrett called LicensE “an overwhelming success, vastly expediting document handling and licensing decisions.”
“We knew that the transition to an all-digital environment would present challenges to parts of this industry,” she testified to lawmakers.
The agency reached out to park representatives ahead of the change, but it lacked some contact information, Garrett added. Communities with expired licenses may have closed, rebranded, changed owners or failed to transition to the online system.
DSPS is working with the Wisconsin Housing Alliance to update missing information on its list of licensed communities, Garrett testified in February.
Seven months later, the department’s licensing site still does not list each of the group’s members.
Bliss said DSPS struggles to make time to meet with her alliance, making it feel like the “red-headed stepchild of the regulated community.”
The former Wisconsin Department of Commerce, which regulated manufactured homes until 2011, communicated far better, she added.
That’s why she pushed DSPS to restart the state’s Manufactured Housing Code Council, an advisory body of representatives from across the industry and the public.
State law requires the council to meet at least twice a year. It met this summer for the first time in more than a decade.
To whom should residents complain?
DSPS received just 18 complaints related to manufactured housing between 2023 and early 2025, only some from park residents. The data understates industry-wide disputes, considering that multiple agencies regulate the parks and residents don’t know where to turn.
In Minnesota, the Office of Attorney General compiled all state laws related to manufactured home parks into an online handbook. Nothing that comprehensive exists in Wisconsin’s sprawling system.
Have a problem with roads? Try DSPS, which regulates community standards and licensing.
County and local health departments generally handle other health and safety concerns.
The Woodland Park mobile home community is shown Sept. 17, 2025, in the town of Fond du Lac, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
Philby and other Woodland Park residents sent all of their complaints to DATCP, including ones related to conditions DSPS is supposed to regulate.
DATCP received more than 100 complaints related to manufactured homes between 2023 and this March. Dozens mentioned issues in DSPS’ domain, like flooding, sewage and roads.
DATCP must identify a pattern of violations before launching an investigation, said Michelle Reinen, an agency administrator. It cannot legally represent individual consumers.
The agency and the Wisconsin Department of Justice in 2023 reached a $75,000 settlement with a Colorado-based park operator doing business in Wisconsin. That was after fielding more than 50 complaints about “unfair and illegal” renting practices.
DATCP and DSPS say they sometimes get information from other agencies. They collaborated on a 2023 investigation — responding to the Boscobel Dial’s reporting — that found violations at Cozy Acres Mobile Home Park in Boscobel.
Lawmaker seeks more clarity
Rep. Scott Krug, R-Rome, wants to clear up confusion for homeowners and landlords.
His legislation, AB 424, specifies landlord-tenant laws for parks and expands on reasons residents may be evicted. It would also require park owners to issue a 90-day notice before closing. He hopes to hear more ideas from the operators and residents if the bill draws a hearing.
Krug calls manufactured homes “a forgotten segment of real estate” that won’t help solve the affordability crisis without state action.
Lawmakers might look backward for inspiration.
A 2002 government task force on manufactured housing suggested consolidating oversight of manufactured home communities to address the state’s “disparate and confusing array” of oversight efforts.
‘They can just do whatever they want’
Park residents also battle public perception.
Members of a North Fond du Lac Facebook group complain about the condition of Woodland Park, calling it a dangerous eyesore.
Responding to one post, Philby explained people’s struggles to afford rent and urged people to push for local solutions.
“Should just flaten it,” one commenter responded.
Residents have sought state help. Stacey Murillo complained to DATCP in 2024 about issues including roads and garbage.
DATCP sent her complaint, with her name, to the park’s manager for mediation. Woodland Park management provided the state with evidence that it was addressing some issues.
But Murillo said too little has changed.
Cindy Philby leans on the bed of her truck, Sept. 17, 2025, in the Woodland Park mobile home community in the town of Fond du Lac, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
Philby complained to DATCP after management gave her a lease that pre-checked a box to opt out of a yearlong contract. Wisconsin law requires landlords to offer 12-month options, more protective against evictions and rent increases.
DATCP reached out to Woodland Park to mediate Philby’s complaint in April but received no response, it told Philby in a letter.
The agency cannot order businesses to participate in mediation, but it can issue notices of noncompliance, which it did in Philby’s case.
“Since your complaint was not resolved through mediation, you have the option to contact a private attorney to discuss your legal remedies,” the agency’s letter said.
“No one in this park can afford an attorney,” Philby said, still waiting for a longer lease.
“They can just do whatever they want,” she said. “The federal government’s allowing them to do it, the town’s allowing them to do it and the state’s allowing them to do it.”
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Credit is an important part of life for many adults, but it can feel confusing or overwhelming, especially if you’ve had some setbacks.
Whether you’re just starting out, trying to bounce back after a rough patch, or simply want to keep your credit in great shape, this is your go-to guide on all things credit.
What is credit and why does it matter?
Credit is your ability to borrow money or access goods and services with the understanding that you’ll pay for them later. Your credit history and score show how trustworthy you are when it comes to borrowing and repaying money.
Good credit can help you qualify for loans, get better interest rates, rent an apartment, or even set up a phone plan, whereas poor credit can make these things harder or more expensive.
Remember, “credit is a tool, not a measurement of your value,” says LaDaisha Washington, financial mentor with UW Credit Union, adding “good credit saves you real money.”
How do I build credit?
“You need to have credit to build credit,” says Mike Hruska, another financial mentor with UW Credit Union.
New to credit or starting over? You’ve got this. These simple steps can help you build a solid foundation:
Start with a secured credit card, says Washington. A secured card requires a small deposit (often $100 to $500), which becomes your credit limit. Use the card for small purchases that you can pay off monthly and show lenders you’re responsible.
Always make payments on time. Both Washington and Hruska echo this top tip. Even if you can only afford the minimum payment, always pay by the due date.
Keep your credit utilization low is another tip shared by Washington and Hruska. Keep credit utilization, which is the percentage of your credit limit you’re using, under 30%. For example, if you have a $1,000 limit, keep your balance under $300.
Diversify your credit mix (over time). Lenders like to see a mix of credit types (credit card, car loans, mortgages, etc.) says Washington. Don’t rush to open lots of accounts before you need them but, as your financial goals evolve, having more than one type of credit can help your score.
How do I maintain good credit?
Consistency and smart habits will help you continue to build and maintain your credit.
Set up automatic payments or reminders on your phone to pay your bill on time. The later the late payment and the more times it happens, the more your credit score may go down, says Hruska. Don’t let it happen to you!
Don’t max out your cards. Staying well below your limit (ideally under 30%) shows lenders you’re not overextended, says Washington.
Manage a healthy mix. Try to have a variety of credit types as you build your credit, but only take on what you need and can manage.
Limit inquiries. Applying for lots of new credit at once can make you look risky. Only apply for new accounts when you really need them and do your research tomake sure each account is a good fit.
How do I come back from bad credit?
Each person’s situation is unique and credit scores can be negatively impacted for a number of reasons, says Hruska, but don’t despair. There are steps you can take to recover:
Catch up on late payments. Bring any late accounts current as soon as possible.
Set up automatic payments. This can help prevent future late payments and keep your accounts on track.
Lower your utilization. Try to pay down balances to under 30% of your credit limit. If possible, ask for a credit limit increase (but don’t use the extra credit to spend more).
Work through the negatives. Dispute any errors you spot on your credit report, and pay off items in collections if you can.
Be patient and consistent. Credit repair takes time. Most negative marks fade after 3–6 months of good behavior, but bigger issues like bankruptcy or foreclosure can take 7–10 years to fully disappear. Keep making those small positive steps – they’ll add up over time.
Ask for help. Many financial institutions and nonprofits offer credit counseling and advice. UW Credit Union’s free credit consultations can help you make a plan for your finances.
True or false?
There’s a lot of bad information about credit out there:
“Checking your own credit hurts your score.” – False! Looking at your own credit report or using credit monitoring services only counts as a “soft” inquiry and does not affect your score. In fact, it’s smart to check your credit regularly. You can get a free copy of your credit report every year at annualcreditreport.com.
“Carrying a balance helps build credit.” – False! You don’t need to carry a balance or pay interest to build credit. Using your card and paying it off in full each month is the best approach.
“Closing old accounts improves your score.” – False! Closing old credit accounts can actually hurt your score because it lowers your total available credit and shortens your credit history. It’s usually better to keep old accounts open, even if you don’t use them, as long as they don’t have annual fees.
Building, maintaining and improving your credit is a journey, not a race. With some simple habits and a little patience, you can boost your score and open up new opportunities. It’s never too late — or too early — to take control of your financial health, and you’ve already taken the first step by learning more. And remember we are here for you if you have questions or want support.
Although all can agree that a fatal car crash in Milwaukee on Sept. 16 was a tragedy, there is less consensus on how to prevent similar incidents in the future.
That day Pler Moo, 50, and her two sons, Moo Nay Taw, 21, and Kar Lah Kri Moo, 15, were killed and two other children seriously injured when their car was struck at North 35th and West Vliet streets by another vehicle fleeing police.
Pler Moo, 50, and her two sons, Moo Nay Taw, 21, and Kar Lah Kri Moo, 15, were killed in a crash on Sept. 16. A makeshift memorial was created near the site of the crash. (Video by Jonathan Aguilar/ Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service/ CatchLight Local)
Since the crash, some have called for changes to police pursuit policies, while others blame the crashes on those who flee police.
“It is a very complex issue,” said Ruth Ehrgott, whose pregnant daughter, Erin Mogensen, was killed in 2023 when a reckless driver fleeing police crashed into her car.
“I will always stop anybody that says, ‘Well, you know, the problem is … .’ These problems are too complex for that.”
Ehrgott takes a nuanced approach to reckless driving through the nonprofit she founded in honor of her daughter, Enough is Enough – A Legacy for Erin.
She believes the entire community has a part to play in reducing deaths and injuries from reckless driving.
Ongoing trend
Pieces of a car involved in a fatal crash that killed three lie on the ground at a memorial in the parking lot of Smoky’s near North 35th and West Vliet streets in Milwaukee. (Jonathan Aguilar / Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service / CatchLight Local)
The crash that occurred Sept. 16 likely would not have happened a decade ago, when the Milwaukee Police Department restricted vehicle pursuits to violent felonies.
In 2017, then-Police Chief Edward Flynn expanded the department’s policy to allow pursuits in cases involving drug dealing and reckless driving.
The following year, police pursuits rose 155% – from 369 instances to 940 – with about two-thirds of the chases initiated because of reckless driving, according to a report from the Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission. In 2024, there were 957 police pursuits in Milwaukee, and just under one-third ended in a crash, according to another Fire and Police Commission report.
There have been five deaths caused by crashes during police pursuits in Milwaukee since July. On July 29, El Moctar Sidiya was killed when a man fleeing officers crashed into his car on West Brady Street. On Aug. 23, Hasan Harris died after his car was struck by an individual who was fleeing police on West Center Street.
The increase of pursuit-related deaths in Milwaukee is often cited as evidence of a link between looser pursuit policies and greater traffic risks, said Geoffrey Alpert, a professor of criminology and criminal justice at the University of South Carolina and an expert on police pursuits.
MPD acknowledges the widespread effects of these pursuits.
“Police pursuits present significant challenges due to the physical, emotional and financial impact on officers, the public and fleeing suspects,” an MPD spokesperson told NNS.
Change to pursuit policy
In 2024, there were 957 police pursuits in Milwaukee, and just under one-third ended in a crash, according to the Fire and Police Commission. (Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service file photo)
Alpert said if the goal is to reduce traffic injuries and deaths, pursuits should be limited to cases involving violent crimes.
He also said it is a myth that limiting police chases to violent crimes causes an increase in other offenses, such as drug dealing. He cited a study in Virginia that found more narrow pursuit policies did not lead to higher crime rates.
There were calls to change MPD’s pursuit policy from members of the public during a Fire and Police Commission meeting on Sept. 18.
Kayla Patterson put it bluntly in her public comment.
“Committing crimes and traffic stops should not be death sentences,” she said.
Others weigh in
Mayor Cavalier Johnson, while speaking at a news conference on Sept. 18, addressed reckless driving and high-speed pursuits.
He said that traffic-calming measures had reduced reckless driving in the city, but high-speed chases involving police remain a serious problem.
Johnson said the city is considering different options, including using technology to warn people about pursuits.
But the primary responsibility for stopping chases is on those who flee, Johnson said.
“I believe that one of the most effective things we can do in order to eliminate these chases … is to listen to officer commands to pull the vehicles over and not proceed with the chase,” Johnson said.
Ald. Peter Burgelis, vice chair of the Milwaukee Common Council’s Public Safety and Health Committee, agrees.
“Criminals fleeing from police contribute to injuries and deaths,” Burgelis said in an email to NNS.
Calling the Sept. 16 crash “particularly devastating,” Milwaukee County District Attorney Kent Lovern said police must be involved in the response to reckless driving.
“It is important to keep in mind that reckless driving has injured and killed a number of innocent people in our community, without any police pursuits involved,” Lovern said. “Police cancel pursuits where the public safety concerns indicate that is the appropriate course of action.”
Drea Rodriguez, global program officer at WomenServe, suggested that police get more training, including on ideal routes to take.
In this way, she said, residents can be a part of the solution and “easily share some hot spots to be aware of.”
A spokesperson for MPD said the department is committed to making sure its training, policies and risk mitigation strategies reflect national best practices.
Ehrgott said in addition to proper training for police, there should be strong repercussions for those who flee from police in addition to greater awareness of its dangers.
“These problems are societal,” Ehrgott said. “It’s happening to all of us.”
Jonathan Aguilar is a visual journalist at Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service who is supported through a partnership between CatchLight Local and Report for America.
Wisconsin electricity rates – for residential, industrial and commercial users – have exceeded regional averages annually for 20 years.
From 2003 through 2022, Wisconsin rates exceeded the averages in each of the three user categories for eight Midwest states, Wisconsin Public Service Commission reports show.
For the three categories combined, Wisconsin’s rate was second-highest in 2023-24 and third-highest in 2024-25 among 12 central region states, federal Energy Information Administration figures show.
Here are the July 2025 cents-per-kilowatt hour rates in Wisconsin versus the north central region average:
Residential: $18.30/$17.84
Commercial: $13.39/$13.31
Industrial: $9.87/$9.46
Electric bills rose for residential customers of Wisconsin’s five largest utilities, according to the Wisconsin Citizens Utility Board. For example, the average monthly We Energies bill for a typical residential customer was $128.65 in 2024, twice as high as $56.18 for 2004.
Booming data center construction in Wisconsin could affect utility rates.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
The former state economic development director for Wisconsin, who previously worked as an executive at a dairy cooperative, announced Monday that she is running for governor as a Democrat, promising to reject “divisive politics.”
Missy Hughes joins an already crowded field of Democrats for the open seat in the battleground state. The primary is just under 11 months away. There are two prominent announced Republican candidates.
Hughes, an attorney, is pitching herself as “not a politician,” even though she spent the past six years leading the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation as part of Democratic Gov. Tony Evers administration. She quit that job on Sept. 19.
Evers is not seeking a third term and has not endorsed anyone in the governor’s race.
Prior to taking on the state economic development job, Hughes worked for 17 years at Organic Valley, a dairy cooperative that began in 1988 and consists of more than 1,600 family farms in 34 states and over 900 employees.
Hughes said as governor she would push for higher wages, improving public schools, affordable and accessible child care and health care and affordable housing.
“I’m not a politician, and that’s the point,” Hughes said in a statement. “To create a prosperous economy for the future in all 72 counties, we need a leader who knows what it takes to create jobs, support workers, and attract businesses – and who rejects divisive politics that leaves so many behind.”
Other Democrats in the race include Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez; Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley; state Sen. Kelda Roys; and state Rep. Francesca Hong. Others considering getting in include Attorney General Josh Kaul and former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.
Of the roughly 6.6 million immigrants who landed in the federal immigration court system over the past decade, at least 41,000 listed addresses in Wisconsin.
Those immigrants, many of them new arrivals, are now in the spotlight.
A small fraction of cases in federal immigration courts involve immigrants with Wisconsin addresses.
Immigrants with addresses in Wisconsin have accounted for less than 1% of the federal immigration court system’s new caseload since 2015.
More than half of all immigrants who entered the court system during that period settled in just five states.
Roughly 20,000 more immigrants with new court cases listed addresses in neighboring Minnesota compared to Wisconsin.
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Case arranged chronologically be date of the first notice to appear issued to a unique case ID. Address information in immigration court records may be outdated or inaccurate.
Federal immigration courts received millions of new cases over the last decade. Only a small fraction involved immigrants with addresses in Wisconsin
Immigrants with addresses in Wisconsin accounted for less than one percent of the federal immigration court system’s new caseload since 2015.
More than half of all immigrants who entered the court system during that period settled in just five states.
Roughly 20,000 more immigrants with new court cases listed addresses in neighboring Minnesota than in Wisconsin during the same period.
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Case arranged chronologically be date of the first notice to appear (NTA) issued to a unique case ID. Address information in immigration court records may be ourdated or inaccurate.
The Wisconsin Assembly voted earlier this month to bar local governments or state agencies from subsidizing or reimbursing health care for immigrants who are not “lawfully present” in the United States. One bill sponsor described that proposal as mostly “preemptive,” given that undocumented immigrants are already ineligible for most Wisconsin Medicaid coverage. The ACLU of Wisconsin is asking the state Supreme Court to prohibit local jails from holding immigrant detainees on behalf of federal immigration authorities, even while some law enforcement agencies attempt to wade further into the realm of immigration enforcement.
Many of the human details of those interactions – immigrants’ names, for instance – aren’t recorded in the spreadsheets listing immigration court hearings and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrests. But the records do provide clues about where new immigrants to Wisconsin came from, where they settled and how they have fared in the immigration court system.
The records also illustrate a 10-year history of shifting immigration enforcement priorities, including the beginning of the Trump administration’s ongoing crackdown.
At least in Wisconsin, immigrants with legal permanent residence outnumber new arrivals. Roughly 21,000 new immigrants in Wisconsin obtained permanent residence between 2015 and 2023: the most recent year for which those data are available. Most were relatives of U.S. citizens, employees of American companies or refugees, though the number of refugees arriving annually in Wisconsin has declined. Of the nearly 7,000 immigrants in Wisconsin who became legal permanent residents in 2023, roughly a quarter were from Mexico.
Those with cases before immigration court, on the other hand, often overstayed visas or entered the country without them, complicating their paths, if any exist, towards legal permanent residency or citizenship. Most came to the U.S. within the past five years, making their way north and registering with the court using a Wisconsin address. Others arrived as children decades ago, first appearing in immigration court records well into their adulthoods.
Unlike federal district courts, immigration courts do not operate within the judicial branch, nor are immigration court judges political appointees subject to Senate confirmation. Instead, the courts operate within the U.S. Department of Justice, hearing cases of noncitizens who the federal government intends to “remove” – in other words, deport. The courts can also consider immigrants’ requests for asylum and other forms of relief.
Wisconsin has no immigration court of its own. The immigration court in Chicago handles most cases involving immigrants with Wisconsin addresses, while a court in Fort Snelling in Minnesota handles a smaller number. But other new arrivals have cases in courts as far away as California and Puerto Rico – an indication of the bewildering range of paths through the federal immigration system.
Immigrants with cases before the courts have the right to an attorney, but the federal government is not generally required to provide one. Unable to afford private attorneys’ fees, many immigrants opt to represent themselves.
Roughly a third of immigrants in Wisconsin who entered the immigration court system over the past decade have been represented by an attorney at some point in their case.
The limited address data available in court records suggests that these new immigrants have settled in major cities and rural communities across Wisconsin, often following jobs in agriculture and manufacturing. Small cities like Abbotsford and Darlington have received more of those recent immigrants per capita than Green Bay, though parts of Milwaukee and Dane County absorbed the largest numbers, both in absolute terms and per capita.
More than half of the new arrivals came to Wisconsin from Mexico and Nicaragua. Wisconsin received roughly 1 in 20 Nicaraguan immigrants to the U.S. over the past decade – behind only Florida, California and Texas, and by far the most disproportionate number in the country relative to the state’s overall share of recent arrivals.
“Most Nicaraguans (in Wisconsin) came from the northern parts of the country and are used to working in agriculture,” said one woman who immigrated to Wisconsin from Nicaragua in 2021. Wisconsin Watch agreed not to name her due to fears of legal repercussions.
A spiraling economy, nationwide protests and a violent police crackdown in 2018 prompted many of her neighbors to leave the country, she said, and word of abundant – and familiar – agricultural jobs drew many to Wisconsin. “By the time I left, only the grandparents remained,” she recalled in Spanish. “There were no more young people, no more children, no more parents.”
Nicaraguans made up the largest share of new immigrants on Milwaukee’s south side, whereas new immigrants from Mexico outnumber those from Nicaragua in the neighboring suburbs.
But the makeup of new immigrants varies substantially between Wisconsin communities. Venezuelans make up the largest share in parts of Dane County, as do Cuban immigrants in parts of Outagamie County, Vietnamese immigrants in Menomonee Falls and Indian immigrants in Oak Creek.
Representation rates vary significantly between immigrant nationalities: Only about 20% of Nicaraguan nationals had representation at some point in their case, compared to roughly 90% of Indian and Chinese nationals.
Not everyone with a casein the immigration court system lacks legal status. Some have obtained Temporary Protected Status (TPS), which currently shields nationals from a dozen countries from deportation, though Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem has moved to terminate those protections for hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Venezuela and Haiti in the coming months. DHS terminated TPS for Nicaraguan nationals in early September.
ICE, a branch of DHS, can move to deport immigrants without a hearing in some cases.
ICE records through late July indicate the agency has arrested roughly 1,700 people in Wisconsin since September 2023. Roughly 45% of those arrested have left the country, either via deportation or “voluntary departure.” Those able to leave via “voluntary departure” avoid adding a removal to their record.
The pace of ICE arrests in Wisconsin is rising during the Trump administration’s nationwide immigration enforcement surge.
In recent months, those arrests have primarily targeted immigrants with criminal convictions or pending criminal charges. The records offer no specifics on the nature of the convictions or charges.
In that regard, Wisconsin is out of step with countrywide trends. ICE data indicates that immigrants with no criminal history made up nearly 30% of arrests nationally in 2025 as of late July, compared to just over 15% of arrests in Wisconsin.
Still, arrests in Wisconsin of immigrants with no criminal history and subsequent deportations are ticking upwards. Milwaukee immigration attorney Davorin Odrcic says the trend reflects a new set of priorities among immigration enforcement officials.
“There was an unspoken rule,” he said, that if an immigrant was seeking legal status and “not a danger to the community, didn’t have any convictions, ICE would let them go through that process.” Based on one client’s recent arrest and detention, Odrcic believes that unspoken rule has vanished.
Arrest data from the Biden administration included hundreds of records of arrests at an ICE office in downtown Milwaukee, the vast majority of which involved Nicaraguan immigrants with no criminal history. Only a handful of those arrests resulted in deportations, suggesting the immigrants were quickly released. Researchers at the Deportation Data Project, which collects and publishes federal immigration enforcement data, say the “arrests” may simply represent immigrants checking in at the ICE office.
Many of Odrcic’s clients are still required to check in at an ICE office periodically – a visit that has become far more daunting under Trump’s recent crackdown. “It’s a challenging situation,” he said. “I can’t advise you to blow off one of these appointments. I could advise you that there is a possibility of detention. So I just have to leave it at that.”
A formal recommendation of punishment for Michael Gableman, whose career rise and fall set him apart in Wisconsin legal and political history, signals the end of a case that has been humiliating for the former state Supreme Court justice and the court itself.
In a report issued Friday, a referee in a state Office of Lawyer Regulation case found that Gableman committed 10 lawyer misconduct violations in his probe of the 2020 presidential election in Wisconsin.
The partisan probe was authorized at the behest of then-citizen Donald Trump, who lost that election to Joe Biden.
The referee, Milwaukee attorney James Winiarski, recommended that the state Supreme Court suspend Gableman’s law license for three years.
Gableman and the Office of Lawyer Regulation, seeking to settle the case, had stipulated to the three-year suspension.
“A high level of discipline is needed to protect the public, the courts and the legal system from repetition” of Gableman’s conduct, by him or other attorneys, the referee wrote.
Former state Supreme Court Justice Janine Geske, who was appointed to the court by Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson, said before the report was issued that Gableman’s behavior in the investigation “was so outrageous and damaging to the image of the Supreme Court.
“But he has been on the outskirts or around ethical violations his whole Supreme Court career.”
Gableman, 58, a Waukesha County resident who has largely receded from public view, did not reply to requests for comment.
The conservative Gableman, a former small-county judge with close ties to the Republican Party, made history by defeating an incumbent justice in the 2008 election. He served one 10-year term before his career began to unravel.
As Wisconsin Watch detailed in April, Gableman attended the 2016 Republican National Convention, in possible violation of the state judicial code, and had to be escorted out of two gatherings there after causing disturbances. After deciding not to seek re-election in 2018, he worked for the first Trump administration before leading the election investigation, a probe that found no fraud but cost taxpayers $2.8 million — four times the budgeted amount.
Gableman now finds himself facing punishment from the very court he served on.
Winiarski has practiced law for more than 40 years and has previously served as referee in lawyer discipline cases. He invoiced the Supreme Court $8,208 for nearly 109 hours on the case at $75.51 per hour. He recommended Gableman be responsible for all costs associated with the disciplinary matter.
The suspension recommendation essentially codifies a stipulation Gableman made in April with the Office of Lawyer Regulation in which he stated he could not successfully mount a legal defense against the misconduct allegations.
The liberal-majority Supreme Court, which began its current session in September, must still approve the punishment.
Geske, who was a justice from 1993 to 1998, said the suspension would be fair punishment in part because Gableman’s conduct in the investigation, including threatening to jail elected officials, helped solidify the public perception that Wisconsin judges have become partisan actors.
“I think people wonder what’s happening in the court and what’s happening with the individual justices,” she said. “So I think he did great harm to the court in engaging in that behavior.”
The Office of Lawyer Regulation case against Gableman alleged that during the election investigation Gableman violated 10 counts of Supreme Court rules of professional conduct for attorneys. He was accused of making false statements about a judge, an opposing attorney and two mayors; making false statements to the Office of Lawyer Regulation; disobeying a court order; and violating the state open records law and confidentiality rules.
University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor Howard Schweber, who is affiliated with UW’s law school, said a three-year license suspension verges on lenient because of the seriousness of the misconduct and because Gableman was acting in a public capacity, not as a private attorney.
Wausau attorney Dean Dietrich, a former Wisconsin Bar Association president and expert on lawyers’ professional responsibility, said “it is unfortunate” that a former justice is facing a law license suspension, but that “the actions of one person do not reflect the actions of others.”
Judicial offices in Wisconsin technically are nonpartisan, but state Supreme Court races have drawn heavy participation and money from the Republican and Democratic parties.
Marquette University law professor Chad Oldfather, author of a recent book on the importance of selecting judges with good character, said a three-year suspension would be typical for the type of misconduct alleged against Gableman.
“Ultimately, we want people of the highest character in judicial roles,” Oldfather said. “Somehow we have to find a way to get the legal profession and the broader culture to buy into that as the top priority, which seems like an awfully heavy lift these days.”
There are also calls for tougher action on lawyer misconduct.
Madison lawyer Jeffrey Mandell, head of a law firm that filed a misconduct complaint against Gableman with the Office of Lawyer Regulation, noted that Gableman previously was investigated for ethics violations involving an ad he ran in his Supreme Court campaign and for hearing cases while a justice that involved a law firm that gave him free legal services.
Gableman was not sanctioned in those cases.
Mandell said the state needs to act more quickly and more decisively on lawyer misconduct. He noted Wisconsin lawyers are not subject to permanent disbarment. Those who receive the most severe punishment, a five-year license revocation, can petition after five years to get their license back.
The vast majority of states allow disbarred attorneys to apply for license reinstatement.
“Some conduct is simply beyond the pale, deserving of a permanent ban from the public trust of legal practice,” Mandell said. “It’s past time for Wisconsin to recognize this.”
After the report was issued, Mandell called for the Supreme Court to revoke Gableman’s law license, saying: “Anything less minimizes the gravity of his offensive behavior and lacks deterrent effect. Wisconsin attorneys must understand that engaging in unethical conduct to overturn the will of voters will not be tolerated, regardless of who the actor is.”
Those who utilize FoodShare and Medicaid may see some changes soon, the result of President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.”
Here is what you need to know.
Changes to FoodShare (SNAP)
Nearly 700,000 Wisconsinites receive food and nutrition assistance through FoodShare.
Reno Wright, advocacy director for Hunger Task Force of Milwaukee, said that while no changes have been enacted yet, the bill calls for a series of modifications.
Some include:
Expanded work requirements. The age range for adults required to meet work requirements will increase from 18-54 to 18-64. Parents of children age 14 and older will now also need to meet work requirements.
Restrictions for new legal immigrants: Before the bill, many immigrants like those with refugee status were exempt from the five-year waiting period that some legal permanent residents face to qualify for FoodShare benefits. The new law removes these exemptions, effectively making many new immigrants ineligible for the food assistance program.
Stricter exemption rules: Some people like veterans, people who are homeless and former foster youths aged 18-24 are exempt from having to meet work requirements in order to receive SNAP benefits. The bill removes those exemptions.
These changes will only be implemented once the Wisconsin Department of Health Services receives further guidance from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Cheryl Isabell, a health care navigator and Milwaukee community engagement lead for Covering Wisconsin, organizes a table of health insurance resources during a community event at Victory Academy Christian School in Milwaukee on March 13, 2025. (Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service)
Approximately one in five Wisconsinites (or 1 million people) receive health care coverage and services through Wisconsin’s Medicaid programs. Almost half of Wisconsin Medicaid members are children.
The U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee Minority released a statement indicating that 276,175 Wisconsinites will lose health care coverage under both the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid because of the new law over the next decade.
Expanded work requirements: Recipients will now have to do 80 hours a month of qualifying activities like work, school or volunteering.
Restrictions for new legal immigrants: Refugees and other people in the U.S. for humanitarian reasons are generally exempt from the standard five-year waiting period to receive Medicaid benefits. The bill removes that exemption.
Recipients have to be requalified for coverage and services every six months.
Cost-sharing requirements will expand.
According to the Wisconsin Department of Health Services, these changes will force working people off the program because of red-tape work reporting requirements; increase medical debt and uncompensated care; increase Wisconsin’s uninsured population; and prevent Wisconsin from innovating and designing the best program for the state.
These changes are set to take effect in late 2026.
What’s being done to help
Alyssa Blom, a communications manager with the Milwaukee County Department of Health and Human Services, said that while the full impact of the Medicaid cuts is still unclear, the department is supporting those impacted.
“We are concerned about how they may affect access to programs and services, especially for the most vulnerable in Milwaukee County,” she said. “Our priority is to continue supporting Medicaid recipients and ensuring continuity of care, while preparing for potential changes ahead.”
Wright said the Hunger Task Force has an advocacy group called Voices Against Hunger. It is a statewide platform where information is sent out to let people know about things that are going on at the state and federal level, including federal nutrition programs like FoodShare.
Wisconsin was among the bottom 10 states in job and business creation in some 2025 rankings, but higher in others.
For starting a business, National Business Capital, a financier, ranked Wisconsin 42nd, citing high taxes and low available funding. Small-business publication Simplify LLC, whose analysis included new business and job creation rates, ranked Wisconsin 43rd. Wisconsin was ranked 35th by WalletHub and 34th by U.S. News & World Report.
More generally, CNBC ranked Wisconsin 21st for business. Wisconsin scored higher in infrastructure and cost of doing business, lower in quality of life and legal and regulatory burdens. Wisconsin also ranked 21st in a poll of CEOs and business owners on best states for business.
Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin will stop scheduling patients for abortions starting next week as it works to find a way to provide the service in the face of Medicaid funding cuts in President Donald Trump’s tax and spending bill, the nonprofit said Thursday.
Abortion funding across the U.S. has been under siege, particularly Planned Parenthood affiliates, which are the biggest provider. Wisconsin appears to be the first state where Planned Parenthood is pausing abortions because of the new law.
The organization warned earlier this year that about half its clinics that provide abortion could be closed as a result of a ban on Medicaid funding for Planned Parenthood for services other than abortion.
The measure was part of the tax and spending law President Donald Trump signed in July. Initially, a judge said reimbursements must continue, but a federal appeals court this month said the government could halt the payments while a court challenge to the provision moves ahead.
Planned Parenthood services include cancer screenings and sexually transmitted infection testing and treatment. Federal Medicaid money was already not paying for abortion, but affiliates relied on Medicaid to stay afloat.
The remaining Planned Parenthood clinics in Louisiana – where abortion is banned – are scheduled to shut down at the end of this month.
Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin said in a statement that it is trying to see as many patients as possible between now and Tuesday. The federal law takes effect Wednesday. It is not scheduling patients beyond that date, and the organization believes the move will allow it to continue seeing other Medicaid patients. The organization said it was working with providers across the state to make sure patients are referred quickly and receive timely care.
It is also considering taking legal action, the group said.
“Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin will continue to provide the full spectrum of reproductive health care, including abortion, as soon and as we are able to,” Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin President and CEO Tanya Atkinson said in the statement. “In the meantime, we are pursuing every available option through the courts, through operations, and civic engagement.”
The abortion landscape has been shifting frequently since the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2022 that allowed states to ban abortion. Currently, 12 states do not allow it at any stage of pregnancy, with limited exceptions, and four more ban it after about six weeks’ gestation.
The bans have resulted in more women traveling for abortion and an increased reliance on abortion pills. Prescribers in states where they’re allowed have been shipping the pills to places where abortion is banned, a practice that is facing some legal challenges and is expected to attract more.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court in July struck down the state’s 1849 near-total ban on abortion, saying it was superseded by newer state laws regulating the procedure. The same day it ruled in that case, the court dismissed a lawsuit filed by Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin asking it to find the law unconstitutional.
Wisconsin’s abortion ban was in effect until 1973, when the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion nationwide nullified it. Legislators never officially repealed it, however, and conservatives argued that the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling that overturned Roe reactivated it.
Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin stopped providing abortions after that ruling for 15 months before resuming them as the lawsuit over the state law played out. It has been providing abortions at three clinics in Wisconsin for the past two years.
Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin serves about 50,000 people across the state. About 60% of them are covered by Medicaid, the organization said.
The federal Hyde Amendment already restricts government funding for most abortions, and less than 5% of the services Planned Parenthood provides are abortions, according to the organization’s 2023 annual report.
Planned Parenthood provides a wide range of services besides abortion. Its most recent annual report shows that contraceptive services and testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections make up the vast majority of its medical care. It performs more cancer screening and prevention procedures than abortions, according to the report.
Mulvihill reported from Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Associated Press reporter Christine Fernando in Chicago contributed.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.
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The Legislature and Gov. Tony Evers have been fighting for control of the administrative rulemaking process since before Evers took office. The rules affect many facets of Wisconsin life, such as water quality.
The liberal-majority Wisconsin Supreme Court has ruled legislative committees can’t indefinitely block rules from taking effect.
Republicans have instructed the Legislative Reference Bureau not to publish rules that aren’t approved by legislative committees. Evers has filed another lawsuit to address the situation.
Are you worried about toxic algae blooms closing beaches and ruining local lakes? Here’s a story worth following:
Nearly two years ago, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources submitted a rule change to the Legislature that would update policies on preserving the quality of Wisconsin water bodies. The purpose was to bring the state in line with updates the federal government made to the Clean Water Act in 2015.
At that point in 2023, the DNR had already received feedback from industry and environmental groups, and Democratic Gov. Tony Evers signed off on the proposed change. But nearly two years later, the update is still making its way through Wisconsin’s administrative rulemaking process.
The DNR water quality update is among executive agency rule changes swept up in a yearslong political debate over who gets the final say on those policy changes in Wisconsin’s state government.
Evers argues the Republican-led state Legislature has obstructed his administration in delaying rules during legislative committee review periods. Republican legislative leaders counter that their oversight of policies from the executive branch during the rulemaking process is necessary to ensure checks and balances remain in place.
The debate has made its way up to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, where there has been a liberal majority since 2023. In July, the court ruled the Legislature’s Joint Committee for Review of Administrative Rules lacks the authority to delay publication of rules from executive branch agencies.
In August, the Republican-led Joint Committee on Legislative Organization voted along party lines to direct the Legislative Reference Bureau not to publish administrative rules still going through standing committee reviews. Evers and several executive agencies responded with a Sept. 9 lawsuit filed in Dane County Circuit Court that seeks to force the Legislature to comply with the Supreme Court’s ruling from earlier this summer.
Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers has clashed with the Legislature over the administrative rulemaking process. Evers is seen delivering the State of the State address on Jan. 22, 2025, at the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
There continues to be finger-pointing from different groups about why the DNR’s rule has taken so long to get through the process. Rep. Adam Neylon, R-Pewaukee, a co-chair of the Joint Committee on Administrative Rules, said in a statement to Wisconsin Watch that the DNR “has not taken the steps to get it through the process.” DNR declined to comment on the rule, citing ongoing litigation.
In the most recent lawsuit the Evers administration specifically highlighted the DNR’s antidegradation rule, which would require permit holders to justify new or increased pollution discharges into state water bodies.
“Currently, Wisconsin does not apply antidegradation review to all discharges of pollutants, to discharges of stormwater, or to discharges from new concentrated animal feeding operations,” Evers’ lawsuit states. “The long promulgation delay has therefore meant that some discharges that this proposed rule would cover have not been and are not being evaluated, risking the degradation of surface water quality.”
The rule is scheduled for a public hearing before the Assembly’s Committee on Environment on Thursday at the Capitol, the second time the change will be heard before that committee this year.
Environmental advocates say the delay means Wisconsin’s water antidegradation policy remains below minimum federal standards, jeopardizing Wisconsin lakes and rivers.
For example, a pollutant like phosphorus, which is found in farm fertilizers, can cause toxic blue-green algae when discharged into water bodies, said Tony Wilkin Gibart, the executive director of Midwest Environmental Advocates. That’s “an important consequence” for Wisconsinites who live near a lake or river, he said.
Erik Kanter, the government relations director for Clean Wisconsin, called the delay a “good example” of a “broken process” in state government.
“It was an easy thing, just trying to comply with federal law,” Kanter said. “And it became this political football lost in this complicated process.”
How we got here
The administrative rules debate has pitted business and private property interests against administrative attempts to boost public health and environmental protections. The rules are written by executive branch agencies to fill in the details of laws passed by the Legislature and governor.
But Republicans have long decried the rules as bureaucratic red tape, rallying voters during their 2010 takeover of state government with promises to make Wisconsin “open for business.” Assembly Republicans, led by Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, launched a “Right the Rules” project to streamline administrative rules during the 2010s, but it hit a crescendo when Evers defeated former Republican Gov. Scott Walker in the 2018 governor’s race.
Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, has long advocated for streamlining administrative rules and asserting legislative control over the rulemaking process. Vos is shown waiting for the State of the State address to begin on Jan. 22, 2025, at the State Capitol in Madison, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
In the weeks before he left office, Walker signed legislation that sought to strip power from the incoming governor and attorney general. Those laws gave the Legislature authority to block or delay administrative rules that come from executive agencies, such as the DNR.
After liberals gained a majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court in 2023, recent opinions have dialed back some of the Legislature’s power over the executive branch. In 2024, the court ruled that a legislative committee could not block DNR spending for the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Program. Then in July, the court sided with Evers when it ruled a legislative committee could not block executive agency rules from going into effect following approval from the governor.
The July opinion specifically highlighted delayed administrative rule proposals on banning conversion therapy and updating Wisconsin’s commercial building code. Prior to the court’s July decision, the Legislative Reference Bureau could not publish administrative rules until legislative committees reviewed and acted on the changes.
In a Sept. 12 video posted on social media, Senate President Mary Felzkowski, R-Tomahawk, argued lawmakers’ review of executive agency rules is necessary before some of the Evers administration’s proposals essentially become law. She slammed a recent proposal from the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection to raise fees on animal markets, dealers and truckers. One animal market registration fee, according to the proposed rule, would increase from $420 to $7,430.
“Evers and his unelected bureaucrats are going to implement their ideology through administrative rules, knowing that the leftists on the Supreme Court shockingly gave them a green light,” Felzkowski said in the video.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
This is Hongyu Liu, Wisconsin Watch’s new data investigative reporter.
If you’ve ever been confused and even intimidated by statistics and other numbers, I feel you.
I was in the same boat three years ago while interning at a newspaper in Quincy, Massachusetts.
Wisconsin Watch data investigative reporter Hongyu Liu (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
When gas prices soared, my colleagues and I made weekly calls to every gas station in town, asking for price updates. It was an effort to help readers who were not familiar with gas price apps to learn where to fill up their cars more affordably. But we were soon drowning in data. Each week, we posted a lengthy list of individual prices, which were already one day old when reaching the readers’ doorsteps. We didn’t quite know how to look at the numbers in a more thoughtful, useful way.
Had I the analysis skills I’ve since developed, I would have approached the assignment differently. I would have looked for trends that may have inspired stories about how the higher gas prices might tighten the budgets of residents.
My eagerness for understanding the world of numbers prompted me to pursue a master’s degree in data journalism at Columbia University. There, I found my niche is where data analysis, web design and journalistic storytelling intersect. I went on to spend almost two years in Charleston, South Carolina, as a data reporting fellow at The Post and Courier, becoming the newsroom “data nerd.” I used data skills to sift through drug prescription records to find evidence of identity theft and understand how loosened regulations led to a surge in sea turtle deaths from dredging near ports.
Now I’m eager to do similar reporting for Wisconsin, using data to provide rich context to our journalism that aims to make communities strong, informed and connected. That includes finding investigative leads rooted in data and producing visualizations that explain the issues we cover, such as through our DataWatch series.
We live in a world with ever-increasing reams of raw data that, if understood and analyzed, can help us better understand our communities. I’m stepping in at Wisconsin Watch to take the lead on how we use data in our journalism — and to understand how actors across the state are representing or even misrepresenting data trends.
I want to hear from you. If you have ideas for data we should analyze and visualize, or if you have questions about data in a government report, email me at hliu@wisconsinwatch.org and share your thoughts.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
On a quiet Friday at Mo’s Bar, a lakeside dive where regulars gossip over beer and fried perch, Rep. Scott Krug blended in easily.
He nursed a Miller Lite and gestured out the window toward Big Roche a Cri, one of the lakes that he said had taught him everything he needed to know about surviving the Capitol’s sharpest fights.
“I was the water guy in the Legislature for years and years,” said Krug, an eight-term Republican who represents a region of farms, lakes and rivers stretching south and west from Wisconsin Rapids. Instead of sticking to the party line, he said, he tried to balance the interests of farmers, the tourism industry and clean water — ultimately winning support from both conservation and agricultural groups.
“I don’t give a shit about getting my head kicked in by both sides,” Krug said.
That willingness to buck party orthodoxy has mattered even more in recent years amid Wisconsin’s fierce battles over election administration. As many Republicans leaned into Donald Trump’s false claims about fraud, and the Assembly’s elections committee became a stage for conspiracy theories, Krug carved out a different role: the pragmatist trying to keep the system running.
He took over as chair of the committee in late 2022 after his predecessor’s hard-line tactics cost her influence. This session, Krug has moved up to assistant majority leader, a role that puts him at the center of GOP caucus strategy. That might mean winnowing 18 election ideas down to five bills, huddling with Wisconsin Elections Commission appointees, talking with clerks across the state, or working the halls to find a path for bipartisan proposals long stuck in gridlock.
It has been hard for Krug to overcome the conspiracy theories embraced by a small GOP faction and rally his colleagues behind his proposed election reforms. When Republicans do unite on election policy, their bills usually face Democratic opposition and a veto from Gov. Tony Evers.
Still, Krug has kept pushing for the policies that clerks have long asked for, like allowing absentee ballots to be processed the day before an election.
He said he measures his success not only on whether he can get his proposals enacted, but also on whether he can change the tone of the debate, increase confidence in elections and cool the conspiracy talk on the elections committee and in his party, even as Trump and his allies help fuel it.
“Messaging,” he said, “has become more important than actual policy.”
The era Krug replaced
Krug took over the election committee from Rep. Janel Brandtjen, a Trump loyalist who regularly invited conspiracy theorists to testify. Groups like True the Vote and people like Peter Bernegger, a prolific election litigant, used the committee’s platform to veer into unsubstantiated accusations of malfeasance or outright fraud by election officials.
Brandtjen also routinely exceeded her authority as chair, issuing invalid subpoenas to counties and other election offices.
Brandtjen also embraced former state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman’s partisan review of the 2020 election, which floated the idea of an unconstitutional decertification of the election, threatened to jail mayors and ultimately cost taxpayers more than $2 million.
While Trump praised Brandtjen’s loyalty, her standing within her own caucus weakened. Assembly Republicans voted to bar her from closed caucus meetings in 2022, writing to her that past issues “led our caucus to lose trust in you.” Brandtjen dismissed the note as “petty.”
Krug saw an opportunity to restore order and told Assembly Speaker Robin Vos: “Give me the election committee,” he recalled. Vos handed him the gavel that December.
The tone changes, while legislation stalls
The tone shifted immediately.
In one of the committee’s first sessions, Krug held public hearings on bipartisan bills to limit polling place closures and compensate local governments for holding special elections. In the next session, he held a hearing on another bipartisan bill to increase penalties for harming election officials.
He didn’t shy away from giving space to Republican-backed priorities either — including a bill to specially mark noncitizens’ IDs as not valid for voting, and an informational hearing to investigate whether noncitizens were on the state’s voter rolls. The first was vetoed by Evers, and the second didn’t go far after the Department of Transportation declined to turn over the necessary data. (Krug told Votebeat he thought the number was minuscule but still wanted the department to share its data.)
Still, for clerks and legislators across the state, Krug has been a welcome change.
Rock County Clerk Lisa Tollefson, who has been advocating for clerks in the Legislature for about eight years, told Votebeat that Krug was the best chair she’s worked with so far. “He wants to understand the system the most,” she said.
Rep. Lisa Subeck, a Madison Democrat and former member of the election committee, said Krug brought a civility back to the committee that had disappeared after the 2020 election. She also praised some of his ideas, though she questioned the effectiveness of his advocacy, noting many proposals he supported never got Assembly approval.
Rep. Scott Krug is seen during a convening of the Wisconsin Assembly at the State Capitol on Jan. 25, 2020, in Madison, Wis. (Coburn Dukehart / Wisconsin Watch)
Krug said a lot of the obstacles come from the state Senate, which blocked the Monday processing bill last year. The Senate, he said, has more “further-outs” on elections.
Kim Trueblood, the Republican county clerk in Marathon County, called Krug’s leadership “refreshing” but said she doesn’t know what to do to convince some GOP senators “that the bogeyman under the bed is not real.”
Krug said he’ll keep trying, and his record suggests he won’t shy away from intraparty disagreements.
He tried to calm down the rhetoric after 2024 U.S. Senate candidate Eric Hovde delayed conceding for two weeks, blaming his loss in part on “improbable” absentee ballot totals in Milwaukee. Krug recalled Hovde raising the issue again in a phone call during this year’s Supreme Court election. Krug, who was observing Milwaukee’s absentee ballot counting facility, said he told Hovde: “I’m telling you, it’s not the issue here.”
Hovde said he couldn’t recall the exchange. He told Votebeat that while he does not blame his loss on central count, his skepticism of the process remains.
Other states, meanwhile, are still battling the ghosts of 2020 in their legislative committees. In neighboring Michigan, Republicans rebranded their House’s Elections Committee into the Election Integrity Committee and placed it in the hands of a legislator who believes the 2020 election was stolen, regularly inviting the type of firebrands Brandtjen once welcomed. In Georgia and Arizona, hearings on election-related legislation regularly erupt into partisan shouting matches.
Vos, the Assembly speaker, said Krug has treated election concerns as “a problem to be solved,” rather than “milked.” He praised Krug for being practical with legislation rather than holding out until he found perfection.
“I think he’s really done a good job of bringing people together,” Vos continued. “He’s been an incredible leader to try to showcase that it doesn’t have to always be partisan.”
Walking the GOP tightrope on election policy
Krug stepped down as committee chair this session, shifting to vice chair and taking on a new role as the Assembly’s assistant majority leader, where he’ll help rally Republican votes. He said he hopes to bring the same spirit of compromise to his leadership role.
The new role means he can write his own bills for the election committee, which he was unable to do last session, as committee chairs generally are not allowed to preside over their own legislation.
Krug said one of his biggest hurdles this session is dealing with election conspiracy theorists — a faction he argues has lost influence in Wisconsin but remains disruptive.
Krug has tried to give where he can, incorporating some provisions of a Trump executive order on elections into draft legislation.
But his tone changed when Trump posted on social media that he wanted to ban mail-in voting and criticized voting machines. “My whole goal is to get results quicker,” he said, “not to go back to hand-counting and wait for results until the Friday after the election.”
Usually, when his constituents or other Assembly members come to him espousing these ideas, he can calm them down with “truth and data,” a strategy he says works until another press release comes from the Trump administration.
“And that’s our struggle,” he said. “You see this ebb and flow, and it’s all based on what comes out of Washington. So we put the fire out. He stokes it, then I put the fire out, he stokes it.”
Krug, a real estate agent, parent of six, and grandparent, said he’ll stay busy even if his tactics make him politically unpopular. If his constituents force him out for telling the truth, he said, he’ll just go sell more houses — and keep adding to his bobblehead collection, a running competition with Evers.
Krug sees promising signs in his party
At Mo’s Bar, where workers and patrons greet him like a neighbor, it’s clear his independence hasn’t yet cost him local support. Despite the headwinds, he insists the atmosphere around elections has changed.
“I feel it when I talk to everybody,” he said. “It used to be my first conversation when I walked in here: ‘What are you gonna do about the goddamn election?’ It’s over. People don’t do that.”
Buoyed by that shift, Krug is scheduled to introduce several election-related bills on Wednesday, telling Votebeat he expects most to win bipartisan support. The measures would let clerks process ballots the day before an election, add new auditing requirements, regulate the use of drop boxes, and repeal a law critics say puts ballot privacy at risk.
He also sees promising signs of improvement from within his own party.
In April — when Hovde and U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson were still criticizing Milwaukee’s election operation — losing Republican Supreme Court candidate Brad Schimel conceded defeat without caveat or complaint.
As some supporters booed him, Schimel said, “You’ve gotta accept the results.”
Krug said he hoped the concession would be a sign to other GOP candidates that the “shine has worn off” of holding radical election positions.
“I’ll never find a way to fix it entirely,” he said, but he has to keep at it because the effort will shape how Wisconsinites view the Legislature on all other issues.
“Everything starts from elections,” he said.
Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.
A fierce loyalist of President Donald Trump who represents a broad swath of Wisconsin’s rural north woods in Congress entered the governor’s race in the battleground state on Tuesday, shaking up the Republican primary.
U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany becomes the front-runner over the two other announced Republican candidates who have less name recognition and support from key conservative donors.
Tiffany announced his bid for governor on “The Dan O’Donnell Show,” describing the decision as a “great challenge but also a great opportunity.”
“I have the experience both in the private sector and the public sector to be able to work from day one,” he said, when asked what differentiates him from the two other Republicans in the race.
“I give us the best chance to win in 2026,” he said.
The governor’s race is open for the first time in 16 years after Democratic Gov. Tony Evers decided against seeking a third term. Numerous Democrats are running, but there is no clear front-runner, and Evers hasn’t endorsed anyone.
Tiffany’s launch did not come with an immediate endorsement from Trump, which will be key in the GOP primary in August 2026.
But Tiffany has the inside track given his longtime support of the president. Another GOP candidate, businessman Bill Berrien, has faced fierce criticism on conservative talk radio after he backed former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley in the 2024 primary and said in August 2020 that he hadn’t decided whether to support Trump.
The third Republican in the race, Washington County Executive Josh Schoemann, has also tried to court Trump voters. He represents a suburban Milwaukee county that Trump won with 67% of the vote in 2024.
Reacting to Tiffany’s announcement, Schoemann said he looked forward to a primary “focused on ideas and winning back the governor’s office.”
Even if he lands a Trump endorsement, Tiffany faces hurdles. In the past 36 years, gubernatorial candidates who were the same party as the president in a midterm election have lost every time, except for Evers in 2022.
Tiffany has cruised to victory in the vast 7th Congressional District — which covers nearly 19,000 square miles encompassing all or part of 20 counties. Tiffany won a special election in 2020 after the resignation of Sean Duffy, who is now Trump’s transportation secretary. Tiffany won that race by 14 points and has won reelection by more than 20 points in each of his three reelections.
But candidates from deep-red rural northern Wisconsin have struggled to win statewide elections, largely because of the huge number of Democratic voters in the state’s two largest cities, Milwaukee and Madison.
Prior to being elected to Congress, Tiffany served just over seven years in the state Legislature. During his tenure, he was a close ally of then-Gov. Scott Walker and voted to pass a law that effectively ended collective bargaining for most public workers.
Tiffany also voted in favor of legalizing concealed carry and angered environmentalists by trying to repeal a state mining moratorium to clear the way for an open-pit mine in northern Wisconsin.
In Congress, Tiffany has upset animal rights activists with his push to take the gray wolf off the endangered species list, which would open the door to wolf hunting seasons.
In 2020, Tiffany voted against accepting the electoral college votes from Arizona and Pennsylvania as part of an effort to overturn Democrat Joe Biden’s win. He was one of just 14 Republican House members in 2021 who voted against making Juneteenth a national holiday.
Wisconsin Democratic Party Chairman Devin Remiker called Tiffany a “bought and paid for stooge,” highlighting his support for Trump’s tariffs, his push to ban abortions around six weeks of pregnancy and his opposition to raising the minimum wage.
“We’re going to show Wisconsinites what a fraud he is and defeat him next November,” Remiker said.
Tiffany, 67, was born on a dairy farm and ran a tourist boat business for 20 years. He has played up his rural Wisconsin roots in past campaigns, which included ads featuring his elderly mother and one in which he slings cow manure to make a point about how he would work with Trump to clean up Washington.
The most prominent Democratic candidates for governor are Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez; Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley; state Sen. Kelda Roys and state Rep. Francesca Hong. Others considering getting in include Attorney General Josh Kaul, former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes and former state economic development director Missy Hughes.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.
Wisconsin’s controversial practice of randomly removing ballots to resolve discrepancies between the number of ballots and the number of voters would be prohibited under new draft legislation that requires meticulous audits in every county.
The draft proposal, obtained by Votebeat from Republican Rep. Scott Krug, will be formally released this week. Krug said the proposed ban on removing random ballots, known as drawdowns, was inspired largely by a Votebeat investigation highlighting election officials’ reluctance to use the practice and questions about its constitutionality.
“That practice undermines public trust,” Krug said, calling drawdowns “outdated.”
Wisconsin’s law allowing drawdowns is almost as old as the state, and it appears to be used most often in recounts. Other states have had similar laws, but most have repealed them.
Drawdowns occur when records show more ballots cast than the number of voters who cast ballots. These discrepancies usually stem from minor recordkeeping errors or process mistakes.
For example, if poll workers discover an absentee ballot envelope was improperly filled out but had already been separated from its ballot, the ballot still counts, leaving more ballots than valid voters. Because ballots are generally unidentifiable, the law would call for election officials to remove one ballot at random.
Multiple Wisconsin clerks have told Votebeat that they loathe the practice, and national election experts have been flabbergasted that it exists.
A legislative study committee in 2005 questioned the practice’s constitutionality without resolving the issue. Courts have similarly scrutinized its use. The Wisconsin Elections Commission has said a drawdown should be reserved as a last resort “when you cannot explain why you have more ballots than voters.”
Sam Liebert, Wisconsin state director of the group All Voting Is Local and a former clerk, said he once had to conduct a drawdown. He called it “one of the most gut-wrenching things I think I’ve ever done.”
“Every one of those ballots — it’s an American citizen’s hopes and dreams of the candidate or candidates that they want to represent them,” he said.
Although drawdowns are rare and usually limited to recounts, they’ve drawn national attention.
When President Donald Trump tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Wisconsin, his team invoked the law to seek a drawdown of 220,000 absentee ballots in Dane and Milwaukee counties, calling the practice “the only legally available remedy” to account for what it alleged were unlawfully cast ballots. The Wisconsin Supreme Court narrowly rejected the effort.
Other states typically require officials to explain discrepancies rather than resolve them by discarding ballots. Krug’s legislation would require exactly that — for election officials to document the discrepancy and record the number and type of excess ballots.
Proposal would require risk-limiting audits
The bill also requires risk-limiting audits, a kind of post-election review designed to give statistical confidence that votes are accurately tallied.
In these audits, workers review a statistically significant sample of ballots that should mirror the vote totals. If the sample doesn’t align with official results within the allowed margin of error, officials review more ballots until it does. The number of selected ballots varies from election to election, depending on how close a race is and how many ballots were cast.
The math behind risk-limiting audits is complex, but election experts and officials have long supported the practice.
Jennifer Morrell, CEO of The Elections Group, a consulting firm, said she has long promoted risk-limiting audits because they can include more ballots than other reviews. They can be laborious in close races but less burdensome in lopsided ones.
Morrell said jurisdictions that have implemented risk-limiting audits have become better at accounting for their ballots and reconciling vote totals, knowing that any issues would become obvious during an audit.
Liebert, from All Voting is Local, called risk-limiting audits “an effective way to ensure a correct count and detect any statistical anomalies,” while boosting voter confidence.
Closer races require larger samples, and in very tight contests, such audits may require a full hand count. Rock County Clerk Lisa Tollefson said that could happen often, as races across the county tend to be quite close.
Krug’s proposal calls for county clerks to perform a risk-limiting audit for the contest garnering the most votes at each general or spring election before they certify the election results. It also calls for an additional audit of a random contest in those elections that the Wisconsin Elections Commission selects.
A pilot program would begin in 2026, with full implementation in 2027.
Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.
Mayors from cities and towns along the Mississippi River are taking action on natural disaster response. Last week they launched a new initiative to improve immediate disaster relief. They’re also lobbying lawmakers to reform the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
The Mississippi River Cities and Towns Initiative, a cooperative of more than 100 river communities between Minnesota and Louisiana, held its annual meeting in Minnesota’s Twin Cities. The mayoral gathering came on the heels of the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and after months of threats from President Donald Trump’s administration to roll back FEMA’s role in natural disaster response.
“Emergencies and crises — they are indeed happening more often,” said Jacob Frey, the mayor of Minneapolis. “And so we all need to be prepared.”
This year, the Mississippi River corridor experienced flooding and drought. Tornadoes devastated communities in Illinois, Missouri and Arkansas. On May 16, the St. Louis region experienced a category EF3 tornado, which reached wind speeds of up to 152 miles per hour and resulted in five deaths and widespread destruction.
Stacey Kinder, the mayor of Cape Girardeau, Missouri, which also saw two tornadoes touch down this year, said her state has suffered.
“Yet, in the face of over $2 billion worth of losses since March, just for Missouri, the future of FEMA and the U.S. disaster mitigation and response apparatus remains in considerable flux,” Kinder said.
Earlier this year, Trump said that FEMA could be phased out in favor of individual states carrying the burden of natural disaster response. Although his administration has reversed course on outright abolishing the agency in recent months, Trump officials are still working on an overhaul. The FEMA Review Council, which was created by an executive order, is supposed to make recommendations to change the agency by mid-November. Meanwhile, an Associated Press analysis found major disaster declarations are taking longer under Trump than historical averages.
In response to FEMA’s uncertain future, the MRCTI announced a new program to deliver assistance to its members “within 72 hours of a disaster event,” said Kinder. That aid could include food, water, hygiene supplies, and other immediate needs, according to Ethan Forhetz, a spokesperson from Convoy of Hope.
MRCTI’s executive director, Colin Wellenkamp, said in surveys mayors have consistently said they need help during the first 36 to 72 hours after a disaster, for which there’s rarely money in their budgets.
The initiative is being done in partnership with Convoy of Hope, a Missouri-based nonprofit. The organization provided food and supplies after the May tornado in St. Louis. It helped respond to more than 50 U.S. disasters in 2024, according to its website.
“By working together before disasters strike, we can reduce response time, position resources where they’re most needed, and make sure families receive help quickly and with dignity,” said Stacy Lamb, the nonprofit’s vice president for disaster services. “This partnership isn’t just about responding, but it’s about building resilience.”
MRCTI did not disclose how the partnership will be financed.
The program is available immediately for partnering cities and towns and surrounding communities.
“Convoy is committed to working with any city along the Mississippi River, and beyond, during times of disaster,” Forhetz said.
Melisa Logan, the mayor of Blytheville, Arkansas, said the partnership is designed to “fill the largest gap in U. S. emergency response called capacity.”
The MRCTI is plugging other responsiveness holes, too. At this year’s meeting, mayors announced a new dashboard to more easily monitor water levels in the river and drought, to better predict and communicate the state of the basin.
In addition, MRCTI announced that it is working with legislators on the Fixing Emergency Management for Americans Act of 2025, also known as the FEMA Act of 2025. The bill would make FEMA report directly to President Trump as an independent agency. The bill’s stated aims are to speed up aid delivery to both states and individuals and reward state preparedness.
MRCTI mayors also want to see a mitigation piece to the bill, including a grant program for projects that address regional disaster vulnerabilities.
“So there’s a lot of moving parts with FEMA right now,” Wellenkamp said. “Where all those moving parts are going to land? Don’t know, but as the mayors pointed out, we know what we have as our priorities and that is the systemic reduction of risk over large landscapes.”
Milwaukee Public Schools has rolled out a new emergency protocol designed to standardize and simplify responses to emergencies.
Staff, families, students and the broader community were tragically reminded of the need for such protocol when, just weeks ago, a gunman opened fire during a student Mass at a Minneapolis school, killing two children and injuring more than a dozen others.
Shannon Jones, MPS director of school safety and security, said shooting incidents like these prompt staff to reflect and assess.
“I think after every incident that has happened nationwide, actually worldwide, we kind of look at where we are and try to take in consideration the ‘what ifs,’” Jones said. “Overall, it’s about the safety of the kids.”
Kevin Hafemann, left, and Shannon Jones, safety personnel at Milwaukee Public Schools, discuss the school district’s new Standard Response Protocol. Hafemann shows the emergency-related materials previously available at MPS, saying that the new material is easier to use in an actual emergency. (Devin Blake / Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service)
What’s new?
On Sept. 2, the first day of the school year at most MPS schools, students were introduced to the Standard Response Protocol, said Kevin Hafemann, emergency operations manager for the district.
The protocol was developed by the “I Love U Guys” Foundation, a national nonprofit that provides free safety resources to schools.
Posters explaining each response are displayed in classrooms at MPS’ roughly 150 schools.
Those responses are: Hold, Secure, Lockdown, Evacuate and Shelter.
Five emergency responses
Here’s what each response entails for students and teachers.
Hold: Students remain in their room or area, while hallways are kept clear. While holding, normal activities can continue.
Secure: Teachers lock outside doors to protect people inside buildings. Although awareness should be heightened, normal activities can continue.
Lockdown: Teachers clear hallways, lock doors to individual rooms and turn off the lights. Students hide and keep quiet.
Evacuate: Students move to an announced location, leaving personal items if necessary.
Shelter: Depending on the hazard announced by the teacher, students respond with the relevant strategy. For example, if there’s an earthquake, students should drop, cover and hold.
Easier in an actual emergency
“The neat thing about the SRP (Standard Response Protocol), it’s very simple. There’s only five, so it’s an all-hazards approach,” Hafemann said.
The posters replaced a much more detailed flipbook.
“This is where we came from,” Hafemann said, holding up the flipbook. “Very great, excellent information. But during a crisis, you lose your fine motor skills. You’re not going to have time when you’re scared to be able to read what to do.”
An English and Spanish Standard Response Protocol poster, created from “I Love U Guys” Foundation materials, shows the five recommended responses to an emergency: Hold, Secure, Lockdown, Evacuate, Shelter. (Photo by Devin Blake from materials provided by the “I Love U Guys” Foundation)
Many community partners were involved in bringing the new protocol to MPS, Hafemann said. This includes the Milwaukee Police Department and the Milwaukee Fire Department.
Fire Chief Aaron Lipski said the collaboration has helped MPS avoid “reinventing a wheel on something that might not work in the real world.”
For example, he said, it’s important for staff to know that during a fire, one of the safest areas of a building is the stairwell.
“Through good incident command and communication with folks at the building, that gives us time for them to go, ‘Hey, we got a kid in a motorized wheelchair on the west stairwell, third floor.’ That becomes a major priority for us,” Lipski said.
Some emergency protocol details cannot be shared publicly for safety reasons, but families are informed whenever changes directly affect school procedures, said Missy Zombor, president of the Milwaukee Board of School Directors.
What’s the same?
Although the Standard Response Protocol is new for the district, it is part of the district’s ongoing Emergency Operations Plan.
The plan is an overarching safety framework mandated by state law, requiring school districts to coordinate prevention, mitigation, response and recovery efforts across the district.
A range of emergency drills are also mandated: monthly fire drills; at least two tornado or hazard drills annually; one “school violence” or “lockdown” drill annually.
MPS also conducts defibrillator drills and, for younger students, bus evacuation drills each year.
What steps can be taken now?
Families should review the Standard Response Protocol poster with their schoolchildren, Hafemann said.
“Just have those discussions with children about these and that they’re aware of what to do,” he said.
Lipski advised reviewing “the basic stuff” as well.
“They probably do well to review basic ‘stranger danger’ stuff,” he said. “Yes, we want you to follow instructions that your teachers are telling you, but if you need to leave the building because there’s an emergency and you get separated, make sure you find an adult that you are familiar with.”
As children get a little bit older, Lipski added, it would be helpful for them to get CPR training and some basic first aid.
“It just reinforces that, ‘Hey, you know what – helping people is a thing you can do,’” Lipski said.
For more information
Families can update their contact information in the online Parent Portal to effectively use SchoolMessenger, the district’s emergency communication tool.
If families have safety and security-related questions, students can reach out to their respective teachers first, while parents can contact Jones or Stephen Davis, media relations manager for MPS, Davis said.
MPS also provides some opportunities for input from families through school-based councils, district surveys, board meetings and community listening sessions, Zombor said.
The Wisconsin Department of Justice maintains a statewide portal for reporting safety concerns. People can also call the tipline at 800-697-8761.
Families and students can access key safety and security documents on the MPS website.
Jonathan Aguilar is a visual journalist at Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service who is supported through a partnership between CatchLight Local and Report for America.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) awarded almost $5 billion less in research grants to U.S. institutions in the 2025 fiscal year than the year prior, a 13.6% reduction, according to an Association of American Medical Colleges report released in August.
The NIH committed $30 billion for research from July 2024 through June 2025, down from the $34.7 billion it obligated from July 2023 to June 2024. More than $3.5 billion of that funding difference was specifically in medical research and development while another half-billion was lost in career training for scientists.
Wisconsin’s share dropped by $84.4 million, or about 14%.
Disruptions in NIH research support have caused most states to lose tens and even hundreds of millions of dollars. They have also halted multiple clinical trials and research projects, including studies on post-tuberculosis lung disease and reducing infectious diseases spread by water.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
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